Ethics Codes

It is difficult to emphasize too much that council control over the ethics process is not only inappropriate and ineffective, but harmful. The first use of a new ethics ordinance in the aptly named Battle Ground, Washington (pop. 18,000) provides yet another example of the problems that may arise.

An editorial in the Lake Forester last week questions whether the county board of Lake County (IL) should be taking a fresh look at the county's ethics program.

The call for an ethics committee to review Lake County's ethics ordinances and policies sounds laudable on the surface, but the question has to be begged:  Is this really needed? We don't think so...

Is discomfort with a centralized ethics program by various parts of a local government something that should stand in the way of creating one? According to an article in the New Haven Register last week, this has been suggested in a discussion by the board of selectmen of Madison, CT, a town...

Government Executives and the Ethics Commission Selection Process
Should government chief executives appoint ethics commission members or their staff? The common practice is that they usually do. But the common practice is not necessarily the best practice, especially when it puts a conflict of interest at the heart of the conflict of interest process.

This issue has arisen in a very concrete way in Montana, where the governor is faced with appointing a new...

My last blog post involved the Baltimore Employees' Retirement System board calling in an image consultant to help protect it from an investigation by the city's ethics board. This blog post will look at why...

At last week's COGEL conference, I learned about a judicial case involving the Anne Arundel County (MD) Ethics Commission, which has been going on for six years. A decision of the Court of Special Appeals last November is worth a look. There's a lot of interesting material for local government ethics professionals. Two of the issues the case raises are the difference between legal ethics and government ethics,...